from the of-course,-there's-no-accounting-for-classified-funds dept

The surveillance dragnet in the US is undeniably large. As such, lots of money (your money) goes into financing the collection of "relevant" data (your data). We've already seen the generous $100 million surveillance "grant" handed out to telcos in exchange for their "voluntary" cooperation.

AT&T, for example, imposes a $325 "activation fee" for each wiretap and $10 a day to maintain it. Smaller carriers Cricket and U.S. Cellular charge only about $250 per wiretap. But snoop on a Verizon customer? That costs the government $775 for the first month and $500 each month after that, according to industry disclosures made last year to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.

These fees are rather low when it comes to government expenditures, but this solely covers the less popular method of obtaining information -- old school, targeted wiretaps. Email records are also obtained very cheaply ($25 or less). Part of this surprisingly low cost is automation. In many cases, what the government is requesting is already automatically generated. Another factor is mitigation of the costs of compliance to the company itself.

Online companies in particular tend to undercharge because they don't have established accounting systems, and hiring staff to track costs is more expensive than not charging the government at all, he said.

Possibly the greatest factor in keeping the prices low is the oft-maligned court of public opinion. Most of the involved companies would rather not appear to be profiting from selling customer data to the government. That's probably a smart idea, but civil liberties defenders agree that these companies should be charging something, rather than handing out info for free.

"What we don't want is surveillance to become a profit center," said Christopher Soghoian, the ACLU's principal technologist. But "it's always better to charge $1. It creates friction, and it creates transparency" because it generates a paper trail that can be tracked.

The individual prices may seem nickel-and-dime, but the government generates enough business for this to turn into real money. AT&T claims to have 100 staffers working around the clock to satisfy government data requests. Verizon claims to have 70. $100 million has already been sent their way, and both companies are extremely unlikely to simply eat these expenses.

Even regular wiretaps can generate significant costs.

The average wiretap is estimated to cost $50,000, a figure that includes reimbursements as well as other operational costs. One narcotics case in New York in 2011 cost the government $2.9 million alone.

The costs associated with the FBI's and NSA's large scale surveillance efforts is likely to remain hidden. The FBI claims it's not possible to estimate its outlays as the payments run through a "variety of programs, field offices and case funds."

Anything about the size of NSA's payments to cooperating companies is genuinely impossible to nail down. (At least without a leak...) Its annual budget is classified. All that's known for certain is 15 intelligence agencies share a $75 billion annual budget and estimates place the NSA's share at $10-15 billion.

There's little chance the details of this budget will ever be publicized, which means the public is again asked to trust the "oversight" of those who have access. It's safe to say a large shadow industry has developed over the past 15 years, one that goes beyond simple transactions between intelligence agencies and involved services.

There's also a large number of private security firms being employed by these agencies, many of which have ensured future profitability by setting up shop as close to the Beltway as possible. That's the larger concern: a set of corporations almost totally funded with public money assisting in the capture, analysis and storage of the public's data.

from the they're-waking-up dept

For the past few years, it was just a very small group of Senators who seemed even remotely concerned about the NSA's broad surveillance and reinterpretation of the Patriot Act and FISA Amendment's Act. Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been talking about it for a while. Senator Jeff Merkley has been concerned about the secret interpretation. Every so often Senators Patrick Leahy and Rand Paul have expressed some concern. But that had been about it. However, with all of the leaks about the NSA's actual programs, more in the Senate appear to be waking up to the issue. A bipartisan group of 26 Senators, led by Wyden, have sent a very strongly worded letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper concerning the programs and his claims to Congress.

In our view, the bulk collection and aggregation of Americans' phone records has a significant
impact on Americans' privacy that exceeds the issues considered by the Supreme Court in Smith
v. Maryland. That decision was based on the technology of the rotary-dial era and did not
address the type of ongoing, broad surveillance of phone records that the government is now
conducting. These records can reveal personal relationships, family medical issues, political and
religious affiliations, and a variety of other private personal information. This is particularly true
if these records are collected in a manner that includes cell phone locational data, effectively
turning Americans' cell phones into tracking devices. We are concerned that officials have told
the press that the collection of this location data is currently authorized.

Furthermore, we are troubled by the possibility of this bulk collection authority being applied to
other categories of records. The PATRIOT Act's business records authority is very broad in its
scope. It can be used to collect information on credit card purchases, pharmacy records, library
records, firearm sales records, financial information, and a range of other sensitive subjects. And
the bulk collection authority could potentially be used to supersede bans on maintaining gun
owner databases, or laws protecting the privacy of medical records, financial records, and
records of book and movie purchases. These other types of bulk collection could clearly have a
significant impact on Americans' privacy and liberties as well.

The use of "gun owner databases" is interesting, as it seems like a pretty clear attempt to attract some attention from a group of Republicans who have been outspoken against gun owner databases held by local governments, but who have been strongly in favor of the NSA surveillance programs.

The letter also calls out a few clearly misleading statements from defenders of the program:

Finally, we are concerned that by depending on secret interpretations of the PATRIOT Act that
differed from an intuitive reading of the statute, this program essentially relied for years on a
secret body of law. Statements from senior officials that the PATRIOT Act authority is
"analogous to a grand jury subpoena" and that the NSA "[doesn't] hold data on US citizens" had
the effect of misleading the public about how the law was being interpreted and implemented.
This prevented our constituents from evaluating the decisions that their government was making,
and will unfortunately undermine trust in government more broadly. The debate that the
President has now welcomed is an important first step toward restoring that trust.

To drive this point home, the letter asks Clapper to answer a series of direct questions:

How long has the NSA used Patriot Act authorities to engage in bulk collection of Americans' records? Was this collection underway when the law was reauthorized in 2006?

Has the NSA used USA Patriot Act authorities to conduct bulk collection of any other types of records pertaining to Americans, beyond phone records?

Has the NSA collected or made any plans to collect Americans' cell-site location data in bulk?

Have there been any violations of the court orders permitting this bulk collection, or of the rules governing access to these records? If so, please describe these violations.

Please provide specific examples of instances in which useful intelligence was gained by reviewing phone records that could not have been obtained without the bulk collection authority, if such examples exist.

Please describe the employment status of all persons with conceivable access to this data, including IT professionals, and detail whether they are federal employees, civilian or military, or contractors.

A bit surprised that Rand Paul isn't on the list. Similarly, disappointed, but tragically not surprised, that neither of my own Senators are on the list. Considering that Dianne Feinstein has been the leading defender of the program, despite the fact that it's a disaster for the tech industry in her own home state, I wouldn't have expected her to be on this list, but it still makes it no less a farce that she's siding with the government against both the public and her own state's best interests.

The news articles have been discussing what purports to be a classified, lawfully-authorized order that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) issued under an Act of Congress – the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Under this Act, the FISA Court authorized a collection of business records. There is no secret program involved here – it is strictly authorized by a U.S. statute.

"There is no secret program here"? Bullshit. Why, then, have so many people, both in the Congress and the public been shocked at the extent to which the NSA is snarfing up data? This is a secret program, enabled by a secret interpretation of the FISA Amendments Act, by the FISA Court, which the DOJ and the NSA insist the public is not allowed to know. Yes, it's a secret program. Saying otherwise is simply lying.

It authorizes only metadata collection, which includes barebones records – such as a telephone number or the length of a call.

"Barebones records" and "metadata" are terms being used to play down the extent of the collection of info, but it ignores multiple reports that note the amount of data actually collected -- including phone numbers, call times, call location, among other things -- is more than enough to identify who someone is and a variety of important characteristics about that person.

This legal tool, as enacted by Congress, has been critical in protecting America. It has been essential in thwarting at least one major terrorist attack to our country in the past few years.

"At least one" is a lot less than the "dozens" NSA boss Keith Alexander recently stated. But, so far the only "one" identified, involving an attempted NYC Subway bombing was shown not to have needed this data collection program to uncover and stop. So, nope.

Despite what appears to be a broad scope in the FISA Court’s order, the Intelligence Community uses only a small fraction of a percent of the business records collected to pursue terrorism subjects.

This is meaningless. That's like saying, even though we search everyone's house illegally, we only actually arrest a small number of people. No one would allow such house searches under the 4th Amendment, so why is it okay with phone records?

All three branches – Congress, the Courts, and the Executive Branch – review and sign off on FISA collection authorities. Congress passed FISA, and the Intelligence Committees are regularly and fully briefed on how it is used.

Except many in Congress have made it clear they did not review this kind of program, or were led to believe that the NSA did not collect this kind of information. And those who are being briefed now say the program goes way beyond what they were told. And, those who did know about it beforehand, tried to dig deeper into the program, but were blocked. As for "the Courts" reviewing it, we're talking about the FISA Court which is a rubberstamp in black robes, having approved every single request of it for the past three years. It last rejected a request back in 2009, and that was only one out of 1320. In its entire history, since 1979, the court has rejected a grand total of 11 applications. 11. Out of 33,939 applications. That's 0.03%. Not 3%. 0.03% with not a single rejection in over three years. That's not careful review. That's a rubber stamp. As for the executive branch signing off on it, what do you expect? They're going to hold back their own ability to spy on people?

The FISA Court authorizes intelligence collection only after the Intelligence Community has proven its case, based on underlying facts and investigations.

Well, we already covered the rubber stamp issue above, but Section 215 of the Patriot Act requires that the government present a case that the data it is seeking "must be relevant to an authorized preliminary or full investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a U.S. person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." I'd love to see the argument that all data is somehow relevant to the investigation. Of course, I can't see it, because it's secret.

This legal tool has been reauthorized only after ongoing 90-day renewal periods. That means that every 90 days, the Department of Justice and the FBI must prove to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that they have the facts and legal basis to renew this legal authority. It is not a rubber stamp.

Ha ha ha. So, we violate your privacy without any opposing view -- but we do it every 90 days for seven straight years.

FISA-authorized collections are subject to strict controls and procedures under oversight of the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the FISA Court, to ensure that they comply with the Constitution and laws of the United States and appropriately protect privacy and civil liberties.

What kind of "strict controls and procedures" allow for the collection of every single record of every single phone call, and then also make it accessible to the 29-year-old IT guy in Hawaii? Just wondering...

Moving on to the "NSA internet talking points."

Section 702 is a vital legal tool that Congress reauthorized in December 2012, as part of the FISA Amendments Act Reauthorization Act, after extensive hearings and debate. Under Section 702, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) certifies foreign intelligence collection. There is no secret program involved – it is strictly authorized by a U.S. statute.

Again, "no secret program," merely a secret interpretation of the law, in a secret ruling by a secret court. What's everyone complaining about?

Section 702 cannot be used to target any U.S. person. Section 702 also cannot be used to target any person located in the United States, whether that person is an American or a foreigner.

Note the careful choice of words: it cannot be used to target a person in the US. It can, however, be used to collect info on a person in the US if they're not "the target" of the investigation. Fun with words!

The unauthorized disclosure of information about this critical legal tool puts our national security in grave danger, puts Americans at risk of terrorist and cyber attacks, and puts our military intelligence resources in danger of being revealed to our adversaries.

Right. So this is not a new program, it's no surprise, people shouldn't be concerned... and now that you know about it we're all going to die!

"I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authorities to wiretap anyone, from you, or your accountant, to a federal judge, to even the President if I had a personal email.

The wording here is a little unclear, since "wiretap" generally means capturing voice conversations, but saying that he would need a personal email address from the President to wiretap him suggests he's talking specifically about access their emails. Either way, given that we keep being told that the NSA is only supposed to cover non-US persons, the fact that a 29-year-old computer guy working for the NSA claims he could get access to anyone's email just by having their email address suggests, certainly, that there isn't much (if any) oversight, and the NSA is clearly not careful about the data it's scooping up.

Later in the interview, he explains why the people who say "I don't care, because I've got nothing to hide" are complete and total idiots:

"Because even if you're not doing anything wrong, you're being watched and recorded. And the storage capability of these systems increases every year consistently by orders of magnitude to where it's getting to the point where you don't have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call. And then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you've ever made. Every friend you've ever discussed something with. And attack you on that basis, to derive suspicion from an innocent life, and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer."

There's a lot more in the interview, which is absolutely worth watching. No one ever got to hear Bradley Manning speak before he got whisked away. Ed Snowden appears to have put a lot more thought and planning into what he was doing than Manning, and here we actually get to hear his thoughts.